


Reaping What You Sow

by Grym



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Deckerstar Network Trick or Devil Halloween Exchange, Fall festivals, Fluff, Gen, Halloween, Humor, Hurt Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Hurt/Comfort, Season 3, The Devil doesn't break deals, The Devil's missing his face but not his ferocity, Trixie is also a badass, Trixie is always adorable, corn maze, mazes are different where Lucifer comes from, sorry for the corn puns - aw shucks, those darn wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-28 08:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12602620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grym/pseuds/Grym
Summary: When it becomes obvious that driving lessons are off-limits for several years, Trixie calls in her favor early. This is not what the Devil had planned for Halloween.





	1. Spawnfest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PixelByPixel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelByPixel/gifts).



> PixelbyPixel's prompt was "cornfield," with a secondary request for some Trixie and Lucifer. 
> 
> And while the deadline for the exchange is today, it's going to be a better story if I finish it properly. So, here's chapter 1 with a promise of more to come soon! Apologies for the wait.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does the Devil think about a children's corn maze? It might surprise you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started as seasonal fluff based on a single punny joke (for which I owe darling hubby--again).

“I must say, Detective,” Lucifer grumbled, stretching his long, tailored form out of the car less gracefully than usual. “This seems a peculiar activity.”

Chloe Decker glanced across at him curiously, then turned to watch her daughter skip off ahead of them. The sidewalk to Roxbury Park was crowded with families. Exuberant youngsters hauled parents and grandparents by the hand to hasten them along. Teens on skateboards tried to look casual and cool as they swung toward the playground or skirted gaggles of schoolchildren. Teachers in bright polo shirts emblazoned with school logos like badges of office shepherded their charges over the grass, through the trees, and into the park proper. High-pitched voices called to friends, and the unintelligible babble of festival-goers could be heard even over the city’s morning traffic.

Amazed that Lucifer could find parking in this crowd, Chloe stepped up on the curb and gestured for him to join her before Trixie got too far ahead. “ _You’re_ complaining about peculiar?” she couldn’t help but tease. “You?”

He drew himself up stiffly but seemed too preoccupied with sidestepping the stream of germ-laden children to take affront.

Covering her smile, Chloe strolled after Trixie, who had joined some of her classmates ahead of them. “What’s so peculiar about Trixie inviting you to join us? After all, I thought she’d become _Trixie Morningstar_ lately?”

Lucifer’s dark eyes finally flicked toward her. “You do know it’s churlish to hold a grudge for this long, don’t you, Detective? Especially as I’m already paying for that little favor by being _here_.”  He slid abruptly behind her to give a wide swath of sidewalk to three gooey toddlers and a harried looking babysitter. “The little miscreant is demanding more than her fair share of our bargain.”

Chloe tsked. “Somehow I think you’ll survive the terrifying indignity of some elementary-age Halloween festivities.”

Before she could say more, several pre-teen boys boiled out of the stand of trees to her right, over-excited, pounding through the crowd and down the sidewalk. They taunted and jostled each other, shouting, heedless of other passersby. One square bulldozer of a boy twisted and dodged around Chloe, shoved roughly between her and Lucifer, and caught himself on the toe of Lucifer’s shoe at the last second. Stumbling for several steps, the hooligan blurted something rude and flung one middle finger up at them before careening away after his buddies, laughing.

From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Lucifer’s face darken. With a growl and a flash of white teeth, he lunged after the escaping boy, stretching one long arm as if snatch him off his feet. She had a momentary vision of him stuffing the child into his own hoodie and using him as a tetherball, but before she could intercede, Lucifer hesitated, stiffened, pulled back. He huffed out a sharp, frustrated breath, staring after the boys as they veered into Olympic Avenue. A car blared its horn, swerving into another lane. A teacher from Trixie’s school bellowed after them, but they had dodged across the road by then and were tearing off along the far side, out of earshot.

Chloe watched them go, then turned to her partner. Lucifer rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, grimacing. When he caught her eyes, he straightened, brushing at his bespoke three-piece suit as if considering burning it instead. “You were saying, Detective? Something about the joys of childhood? Or was it this delightful autumn fest? Something like that, was it?”

“Trixie thought you’d like doing something with us for Halloween. That’s all.” She patted his shoulder in an effort to get them moving again and was surprised when he flinched, perhaps more shaken by the rowdy boys than she would have thought. “Hey, you okay?”

He nodded brusquely. “Why on earth would the child think I’d enjoy this?”

“Probably because it’s Halloween,” Chloe said slowly, “and you’ve told her you’re the devil about once a week since we met you?”

“Yes, that _is_ the problem,” he agreed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I made a deal with your little minx months ago. But since you won’t allow me to fulfil it properly—”

“She’s not driving until she’s 15, Lucifer.”

“—I’m stuck attending this ghastly seasonal spawnfest instead.” He heaved a sigh and fell reluctantly back into step with her. “Unfortunately, it’s within her rights to change the terms and call in her marker for something else given your rather unfair rules. And if this is what she wants instead of driving lessons in the ‘Vette, I’m obligated to provide.”

A siren wailed in the distance, and heads all around them turned back toward the road in brief curiosity. Chloe opted to ignore Lucifer’s longsuffering sense of her “unfair rules,” and instead just pointed him into the fringe of trees after Trixie.

She had kept one cautious eye on her daughter’s bouncing pigtails and sparkling purple sweater, but knew where the child would head first. In the distance, beyond the playing fields, she could just glimpse her daughter’s top priority—a wide swath of browning green stalks, a miniature cornfield that had been an unusual summer addition to the park in preparation for Roxbury’s first haunted maze. “Come on, Lucifer. It’s probably best if we get through the corn maze before it’s completely overrun with kids. I don’t think I could live it down if you contracted cooties from someone’s _spawn_.”

“No doubt,” he replied with surprising equanimity, lengthening his stride. “But who knew pocket-sized humans even liked such things?”

“Well, who do you think they’re designed for, Lucifer? The school PTO helped arrange this one just to have an actual corn maze inside the city this year. Usually we’d have to go out to the Valley or one of the suburbs, at least.”

Lucifer stared at her as if she had sprouted a second nose. “I’m not usually one to question how the city chooses to corral its prepubescents,” he said, sounding puzzled, “but I am surprised to find you so supportive.”

“Why? Dan and I usually make sure Trixie gets to some of the seasonal attractions each year, and corn mazes are good for family outings.”

Lucifer blinked at her. “Will wonders never cease,” he murmured, still watching her as if waiting for her to turn neon orange and grow fangs.

Used to his periodic bouts of Luciferness, Chloe just ushered him off the sidewalk and under the the trees. Fallen leaves crunched underfoot. “Lucifer, I know last year didn’t work out so well. And Dan’s busy this year trying to get on Lt. Pierce’s good side, so he can’t take time off. But doing things like this with Trixie is important to being a family.”

“Oh, I can believe Daniel likes pony rides and pumpkins and kettle corn.” He waved a hand in the air distastefully, indicating the general parkland ahead of them. “Even with the smell and the general stickiness. But it doesn’t seem like either of you to encourage your progeny to participate in the maze part of things. Humans,” he mused.

Chloe wondered if she had missed a joke, but he seemed quite earnest. “Oh, cheer up,” she told him. “I’ve heard it’s barely an acre. And the school helped design it, so it’s important to Trixie.”

Head tilted, still frowning, Lucifer followed her through the trees toward a well-kept lawn where pockets of children played yard games, squealing and running about under the watchful eyes of chaperones. “But,” he finally asked, “how does it even work? Do you put Jenna Jameson around one bend in a naughty nurse costume and hide Ron Jeremy at the center in tight leather vampire pants?”

“What?” Sighting Trixie just past a group building a giant-sized Jenga tower, Chloe headed that way. Her daughter had picked up a bright fall-colored leaf and was waving it delightedly in their direction, trying to hurry them along.

“Given the scope of the industry in L.A.,” Lucifer continued, “I’m sure there are plenty of actors and actresses looking for work, but this seems like it would be really hitting bottom, so to speak. And not in the fun way, of course.”

Chloe stopped walking.

“I mean, believe me, Detective, I applaud raising your offspring with an open attitude toward the human physique. And no one approves of normalizing sex more than me. But I’m genuinely surprised that _you’d_ support the school in taking their education in quite this direction.”

“Wait. What the hell are you talking about?” 

He lifted his eyebrows at her knowingly, black eyes glittering, the faintest curl of a smile at the corner of his lips.

Finally putting it together, Chloe gasped. “ _Corn_ maze, Lucifer!  As in corn fields and agriculture. _Corn_ maze, not _porn_ maze. Oh my god.”

“Ah.” Looking rather crestfallen, Lucifer nodded slowly. “That does seem more in character, now that you mention it.”

Chloe massaged her temples. “No wonder you agreed to come with us this morning without complaining as much as I expected.”

“You have to admit, ‘corn maze’ sounds dreadfully boring in comparison.”

Before Chloe could decide whether to laugh, cry, or rage, the tenor of happy voices around them changed. The distant siren, now joined by several others, seemed to be converging on them, flashing lights visible through the trees. A massive fire truck jolted its way up onto the curb and nosed through the pedestrians, tires cutting across the lawn, disgorging firefighters as it went.

With Lucifer behind her, Chloe leapt for the edge of the trees, catching the first whiff of smoke just as Trixie came running back across the lawn. A dark grey plume spiraled lazily up from the little cornfield. The flicker of brilliant orange raced along the tasseled tops of the plants.

“Mommy! Lucifer!” Trixie chirped, wide-eyed. “The corn maze is on fire! It’s on fire!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be up soon. PixelbyPixel, I hope this turns out to be something you'll enjoy! :)


	2. Labbywrenches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the corn maze fire, the Devil needs a plan to fulfill his end of the bargain. Luckily, he knows who to ask.

“No,” Maze said flatly.

“You don’t even know what I’m asking.” Lucifer tried to keep his voice level, free of the instinctive growl of command.

Mazikeen lay draped across the apartment sofa, one leg cocked over its arm, idly trimming her nails with a demon blade. “I told you, I won’t cut them off for you again. Linda says you need to learn to live with them.”

“What? No.” Lucifer ground his teeth. He could have sworn that Mazikeen used to actually listen to him. The Devil took a steadying breath and tried again. “The good doctor’s knowledge of some angelic appendages is debatable, but that’s not what I’m—”

“Nooope,” Mazikeen repeated, a little louder.

Now he did growl, a wet reverberant burr that wasn’t at all human. “I have an accord with the Detective’s offspring that the Detective refuses to allow me to fulfill,” he said tightly.

“You made that deal, not me.” She shrugged one leather-clad shoulder, gesturing with the dagger toward the stairs where Chloe had vanished moments earlier. “Not my fault you can’t sneak around behind Decker's back properly.”

Had his proper face still been his, his eyes would have blazed scarlet with irritation. He loomed over the demon on the sofa, displeasure visible in every hard line of his body. The wing muscles he had so recently severed spasmed and cramped as if the obdurate things tried to flare and mantle impressively in spite of their absence, and he gasped softly in pain. WIth an effort, he turned the sound into slow, angry, threatening breaths.

Mazikeen scratched herself. Yawned. Began shaping her nails again.

Why were demons so damned stubborn? After a minute of useless posturing, Lucifer sighed and perched on the other arm of the sofa, resigned. Ever since Hell’s favorite torturer had moved in with the Detective and her diminutive get, she’d started picking up peculiar human habits. _Like free will,_ he thought uncharitably. _Ironic. Be careful what you wish for._  “Demon mine,” he finally said, reluctant respect and long-tried affection in his voice, “I really do think this will be worth your time.”

“I’m not your demon these days, Lucifer,” she reminded him.

“No, you’re not,” he amended. “But you’ve spent more time around the Detective’s mini-me than I have. You took her out last Halloween, yes?”

“So?”

In answer, he just nodded toward where Trixie sat miserably in front of the television.

When the fire brigade had rushed in, school personnel quickly rounded up everyone and sent them home with their families. Glancing back as they hurried to the Detective’s vehicle, Lucifer had seen fire rushing through the drying corn field, thin tongues of flaming reaching into scattered fall leaves and sparking in the low branches of trees. Frightened humans milled around, grabbing children off wooden playground towers, crowding them into cars. Smoke thickened the air and reminded him unpleasantly of Hell.

Trixie hadn’t said a word. When they arrived home, she had slouched into her room and returned wearing her President-of-Mars helmet, but avoiding everyone’s eyes or questions. She even ignored Lucifer’s delighted query about the devil drawing on the refrigerator (“The tail is wrong, but the skin-color is almost dead on, I’m sorry to say.”). For several silent minutes, she wandered aimlessly around the apartment under Chloe’s concerned gaze before turning on the television. Now she slumped despondently on the rug, arms wrapped around a pillow, staring at the blank wall while cartoons flickered across the screen, reflecting in the plastic bowl and the margarita glasses but not in her eyes. When her mother tried to talk to her, she just shrugged.

When Chloe slipped upstairs to change and call out of work for the remainder of the day, Lucifer had stood behind the child, staring down at her uncharacteristic stillness. An uncomfortable sensation gnawed behind his ribs, one that reminded him of how he felt when he saw Charlotte Richards struggling with her missing months of life.

Accountable. Responsible, even.

 _Surely not,_ he thought. _I’m no more accountable for the tiny human’s Halloween desires than for Charlotte’s Mum-conundrum. Less so, in point of fact._

Perhaps the weird feeling was an augur of gastric distress? After the near-miss of all the hideously over-sweetened spawn-style treats at the park that morning? Or a reaction to the gloating hauteur of his former demon? Or an aftereffect of the rather brutal morning’s manscaping?

Only one way to find out.

“If I’m going to hold up my end of our bargain,” he grated to the demon after a long moment of weighing his options, “then, I could use your insight.”

Swinging her legs off the couch, Mazikeen sat up with her first gleam of interest. “What’s this, then?” she purred, tilting her chin to reveal the long expanse of her neck, serpentine, provocative. “Did I hear my Lord correctly?” She lingered over his old honorific, letting the well-worn phrase glide over her lips, slide behind sharp teeth. “You could use me, could you? I’d like to see you try.” A pause. Something feral moved in her gaze, and her breathing quickened. “I really, _really_ would.”

He didn’t doubt it, but All Hallows’ Eve was ticking closer minute-by-idle-minute, and he had only the barest notion of what he intended to do. It was less of a “plan” and more of a sense that he needed to do _something_ to quell the beast squirming in his gut every time he found himself staring at the Detective’s spawn. “Mazikeen,” he growled. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but—” Another glance at Trixie to steel himself. “I need a fav—”

On her feet and across the distance between them in an instant, Maze pressed one finger over his open lips. A jack-o'-lantern grin split her face, but her voice was somber. “Don’t,” she said. “You don’t need to. _This_ time.” He noticed that her eyes strayed past his shoulder to the little girl in front of the TV, too. “But only because it’s not _for_ you.” She broke away from him and snatched her fringed leather jacket from where she’d thrown it over a chair. “So, let’s go, then.”

Chloe reappeared on the stairs in sock feet, having changed into a staying-at-home t-shirt (that read _Plain Clothes Cop_ ) and faded jeans. “Oh. Are you going somewhere?” she said, sounding surprised. “I thought we’d watch a movie with Trixie and maybe do the Trick-or-Treat thing in a couple of hours while there’s still plenty of light?”

“Yeah, well, change of plans,” Maze said shortly. “Devil’s made a deal. Guess I’m gonna help him keep it.”

Chloe looked at Lucifer, then at the small hunched figure in the den. She dropped her voice. “I thought you were spending Halloween with us today?”

Lucifer beamed up at her from the bottom of the stairs. “I am, as ever, as good as my word, Detective. I promised your progeny I’d attend her strange little Halloween gala, but I’m guessing that the gibbering horde of human sprogs won’t find the charred and sodden remains at the park very acceptable. So, it falls to me to sort it out!” He rather liked the confused expression on the Detective’s  face, pale eyes narrowed, lips parted, fingers in her loose hair. “Oh, and if you want to do your part, phone those beleaguered adults at the school and let them know Lux will be hosting them tonight instead of Roxbury Park.”

Grabbing his arm, Chloe dragged him into the corner of the kitchen. The motion amplified the ache in his shoulders, and he tried to subtly twist out of her fingers. She tightened them.  “What are you talking about?” she hissed. “Lux can’t host a children’s party, Lucifer. It’s a nightclub. A very adult one.”

“I didn’t say there’d be an open bar,” he chided her. “I can do all-ages-friendly, if I must.” His grin widened. “Although local educators make up rather a large proportion of my weeknight alcohol sales—for the obvious reasons—so I may provide them libation gratis.”

She rubbed the back of her neck the way he’d seen her do before especially difficult interrogations, looking uncertain. “I don’t know, Lucifer.”

“I promise I can do this.”  His playful demeanor cracked for a moment. “Rather, I promised the child. That’s the important thing here. You wouldn’t have me break a deal, would you? First time in millennia? My reputation, Detective!”

Chloe tried once more. “Thank you for even thinking of helping, but Trix was really excited about the corn maze—much more than anything else. You can’t grow a cornfield in a few hours, especially not inside Lux.”

“Of course not, my dear!” he said, the solution beginning to dawn on him. He rubbed his hands together in sudden glee. “But I’ve more than enough experience with labyrinths.”

“Labyrinths?” she repeated doubtfully.

“After all, I’m the Devil. And I have expert help.” He arched an eyebrow toward where Mazikeen waited impatiently by the door. “That’s the mistress of the abyssal maze, herself. Why, we even call her ‘Maze,’ do we not? Shouldn’t it otherwise be ‘Maz’?” He flattened the ‘a’ sound.

“Assuming I can get the school to even believe that one of the most exclusive nightclubs in LA wants to host a bunch of elementary kids tonight—and given how rarely I make PTO meetings, they’ll probably just ignore me—what exactly do I tell them?”

He grinned and opened his arms dramatically. “Tell them the Devil Himself invites them to a special one-evening-only chance to walk the Labyrinth.” He gave a little bow, looking smug. “And bring a change of underwear.”

Shaking her head, Chloe smiled up at him. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Lucifer. It—it means a lot. Just don’t make it too scary for the kids!”

“Ah, yes,” he said, distractedly, mind already glutted with possibilities and all the favors he’d need to call in to make it happen in just a matter of hours. Mazikeen’s dark-lipped smile was a wicked reflection of his, her face lit with memories of home and her old job as she opened the door for them both.

Before he could step outside, however, small fingers caught his, and he froze, looking down with surprise into Trixie’s familiar round face. Although her nose was crinkled with puzzlement, her eyes sparkled with curiosity and life. (The creature bothering his gut padded around a moment and settled with a distinct sense of satisfaction.) “Lucifer? What’s a labby-wrench?” the child asked.

“A very frightening _maze_.” Lucifer couldn’t help but grin at his demon.

Mazikeen rolled her eyes, but the Trixie bounced with excitement. “Ooo! That’s the coolest kind,” she said. “I like scary!” She waved Maze closer, cupping one hand around her mouth to whisper loudly, “You should wear your face! Maybe you can scare the poop out of Kevin Crabtree!”

 _Wear your face?_ Lucifer looked curiously between the demon and the spawn, but only asked, “What’s a Kevin Crabtree?”

“The middle schooler who ran into you and mommy,” Trixie replied with a little frown. “He’s a mean jerk. All his friends are bullies.”

He was impressed, he had to admit.The Detective’s sprog had taken quickly to bargains, showed a true talent for deception and manipulation, but it seemed she wasn’t merely a trickster in training. She also had a natural impulse toward punishment—rather like her mother. Definitely like her live-in demon ally. Maybe, just maybe, even a bit like Lucifer himself.

Mazikeen answered before he could, and he could feel Hell’s Mistress of the Maze bristling at the child’s words, see the raw, withered muscles of her hidden face twist toward a protective snarl. “We’ve got it, little human.”

Lucifer sketched a tiny bow to the child, tossed a smug smile at his bemused Detective, and followed Mazikeen out of the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Trix"ter-in-training? ;-) Couldn't help it ... and it fits. Hope this is still amusing, even as a very belated Halloween tale! More soon.


	3. The-Devil-You-Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux gets a rather corny makeover, Maze is keeping secrets, and Lucifer wishes Halloween would just be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Pixel-by-Pixel, I really haven't forgotten this. Hope this (over-long) chapter helps bridge the long, long months of overdueness. One more to chapter go. It's cheerfully kicking my arse, but I'll win eventually. I'm posting this so I can make myself stop picking at it and just let go.

Trixie squealed in excitement as the bellhop in front of Lux opened the car door and bowed her onto the lush, blood-red carpet. “His Infernal Majesty welcomes Mistress Trixie and the Madam Detective to his playground for the evening,” the young man intoned from behind artful demonic face paint. Bending low, he offered Trixie his arm with a deferential air.

Chloe handed her keys to another doorman, a “devil’s minion” in pale makeup with an extreme sweep of black eyeliner that reminded her a little of his boss. Or, at least, it did until he blinked, revealing the painted illusion of burning red eyes on his eyelids, an almost too-real flicker of horror behind the playful drama. 

Seeing her start, the doorman gave her a apologetic shrug before sliding behind the wheel and driving away, leaving her to follow Trixie and her escort and wonder what she’d gotten the entire school into.

The usual velvet entrance ropes were strewn with decorative cobwebs, and the parents and children standing behind them made a strange parody of Lux’s regular nightly clientele. Trixie’s bounded over to greet her first grade teacher, who was waiting patiently with her own family. Chloe peered down to the main street where the line vanished around the corner and noted the steady trickle of even more families arriving by Uber or wandering over from the nearest public parking lot. So much for the PTO not taking Lucifer’s offer seriously.

A familiar gang of boys lurked at the curb, kicking litter into the main street and pulling faces at the smaller children, apparently unchaperoned. 

“Kevin Crabtree and his friends,” Trixie whispered at her elbow when one squat boy sneered up at an annoyed-looking doorman. “I hope Maze scares them good.”

Chloe tried not to smile, but she  _ had _ always encouraged her daughter to stand up to bullies. “I’m sure she will,” she said, letting the doorman show them past the front of the line. 

They wandered through the unnaturally quiet club entrance to the main room and stopped at the top of the stairs to stare. All the circular booths and high tables were gone, the bar itself dark and empty of glassware and liquor bottles. Instead of the usual press of people, row after row of narrow poles filled the floor, each wrapped in delicate green paper. Narrow, arched paper leaves rustled in a generated wind, and the creak and chirp of cicadas and tree frogs echoed from the sound-system. Above them, the grid of glittering ceiling lights had been dimmed; fresnels gelled red and orange washed the room instead in a glow that mimicked sunset, and a single covered spotlight gleamed high above like a full harvest moon. 

It could have been a dream-sequence on a movie set, a sidestep out of reality, an alternate universe landscape. Beautiful and surreal. 

“It’s a corn field,” Trixie gasped, bouncing on her toes in mounting excitement. “Mommy, Lucifer made me a corn maze!”

From their vantage point, they could see over the tasseled tops of artificial corn, glimpse the shadows of geometric paths that crisscrossed the field. Here and there, at some turning or juncture, tall black iron cages loomed amid the stalks. Inside each, something person-sized but not always person-shaped crouched or hung or stretched through the bars as if eager to be set free. In the closest cage, Chloe thought she could make out a scarecrow of sorts, all loose-limbed stillness, blank burlap face stitched into an eerie half-smile. 

It jerked suddenly, eyeless face lifting toward them.

Trixie squeaked, and Chloe felt the hair at the nape of her neck rise. They watched as the figure shuddered and began to stumble around its prison, straw-whispering, groping, banging softly into the bars before falling limp again, hanging lifeless from the locked gate by one arm.

“Ooooooooo,” Trixie breathed.

Across the room, some sort of dark, winged creature dangled upside down from the top of its cage, shrouded in feathers and shadow. Its eyes seemed to catch the orange light briefly, glinting as if it, too, was watching them on the stairs. Further still, something large and animal slunk back and forth on an enclosed catwalk, all fur and shadow and sinew and, probably, teeth. Heavy chains secured that particular cage, obscuring it partly from view.

Chloe shivered. Was that just a performer? Were those chains as real as they looked, or just plastic and resin props? She glanced down at Trixie, concerned, but the child registered only a sort of giddy eagerness, gripping the ornate iron rail and leaning as far as she could to see the maze and its denizens.

Taking her cue from her daughter’s evident delight, Chloe brushed away her own nerves and reminded herself that this was all just expensive illusion. After all, the Lux regular staff were often out-of-work dancers, actors, and even film technicians, and she knew from experience that Lucifer himself was a master of special effects--of hidden blood packs and disappearing acts and all sorts of devilment.

At the far end of the room near the second bar, Lucifer’s piano had been raised on a dais above the scene, its gleaming black presence somehow more uncanny, more out-of-place than any of the monsters. A dark-skinned woman garbed in vaguely African attire, long hair twisted into a mass of dreadlocks, sat idly fingering the keys. Single notes and abstracted chords rang out plaintive and strange in the quiet club. Chloe felt almost certain the woman was staring back at her, too, curiosity in the cant of her backlit head. She was short, almost stocky, not anyone she’d seen at Lux before, but clearly someone allowed to touch Lucifer’s precious Steinway. Chloe couldn’t remember seeing anyone but him ever playing it.

“Well, Detective?” The low, familiar voice murmured at her shoulder. “What do you think?”

Before Chloe could turn fully, Trixie leapt for the figure behind them, shrieking,“Lucifer! It’s so awesome!”  She flung her arms around his waist and buried her grinning face against his hip. “The best corn maze ever!”

“Ah.” Lucifer stiffened, looking to Chloe for help. When she just smiled, he huffed and gingerly pried at the child’s shoulders with his fingertips. “Ah, good evening to you, too, urchin. Just so you know, I will consider our bargain fulfilled at the end of this.”

Nodding vehemently and oblivious to his discomfort, Trixie rested her chin on his front buttons to peer up at him. “Who are you supposed to be?”

Lucifer sniffed and gave up on plucking her loose. He twisted himself carefully away in a hip-rocking wriggle and, once free, brushed the front of his costume as if removing recalcitrant dog hair. Trying to recover his dignity, he cleared his throat. “Why, I’m The-Devil-You-Know, of course,” he replied in something like his usual warm purr, spinning slowly on his heel to show off his ensemble.

Trixie giggled, delighted. Chloe stared. 

Her partner wore a stylish but old-fashioned tailcoat, so black it seemed to swallow the light. The high-collared silk shirt, scarlet brocade waistcoat, and dark cravat gave him an especially aristocratic air.. A sinuous red tail (with a not-so-subtly suggestive tip) poked through the rear of the coat, animated by his movement. And Chloe couldn’t help but laugh when he faced them again and bowed regally. Almost hidden in the edge of his dark hairline were two tiny red horns. 

“Laugh if you will, Detective,” he said smoothly, leaning toward her with a mischievous grin. His usual guyliner was especially dramatic, sinking his eyes into shadow so they gleamed. “But you know I’m the Devil everyone  _ wishes  _ they knew, at the very least.”

Trixie piped up. “If you’re the devil, does that mean you have a face like Maze’s? Her Halloween face?”

It seemed to Chloe that some of Lucifer's performed arrogance slipped, that it took him a few seconds too long to respond.

“Ah—no, child,” he said haltingly, visibly discomfited. “I did have . . . until recently.”

“Did you lose it? Mommy lost my President of Mars suit, but promised I could make a better one next year.”

“No, I did not misplace it. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Then you should wear it!” the child insisted blithely. “I saw Kevin Crabtree outside.”

Lucifer seemed unsettled, caught between confusion (Kevin who?) and some sort of distress at her daughter’s suggestions. His kohl-lined eyes flicked past the child as if searching for a response in the Halloween decor around them.

Chloe rescued him. “It would be rude for the host to be too scary, don’t you think, monkey? Besides, I asked that Lucifer keep everything PG or better.” She touched his arm, drawing his attention back to her. “You  _ did  _ keep things kid-friendly, right?”

His eyes sharpened, the odd, unfocused hurt draining away. Drawing his devilish persona around himself again like a cloak, he gave her a slow smile. “Well,  _ I  _ did, at least.”

“Lucifer,” she said warningly. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, Mazikeen demanded free-rein downstairs in the prohibition tunnels. I haven’t even been down there myself yet. No rest for the wicked, you know.”

Trixie tugged at Chloe’s sleeve. “Can I go see the maze?” she asked, practically vibrating with enthusiasm “Can I, please?” 

“Brilliant idea!” Lucifer flapped his hands at the little girl, shooing her away with only a hint of relief. He caught Chloe’s glance and added, “No tunnels, though. Corn maze and game rooms only. Because your mother is overprotective and boring.” 

Chloe scowled half-heartedly and watched her daughter  scamper downstairs.

“Release a few of our caged monsters while you’re at it,” Lucifer called after her. “I’m sure they need a stretch by now.” To Chloe, he said in hasty assurance, “Mostly Lux dancers, of course. They were actually eager to work tonight. Who’d have thought this clientele might somehow be fun to them?”

Chloe watched the child vanish into the maze's greenery, feeling faintly relieved at the confirmation that the monsters were merely the usual staff. “I suppose everyone enjoys a change of pace,” she said.

“The tips are going to be lousy, even with seasonal overtime.” He shook his head, mystified. “But it’s their choice.” He offered Chloe a crooked arm with flourish, lifting his chin and adopting a regal, expectant air. “Well, Detective? Shall we explore, as well?”

She laughed, laid her arm along his in what she thought was courtly fashion, and allowed him to escort her downstairs in fairy tale formality. His hand beneath hers was warm and steady, each each of his fingers adorned with heavy, ornate rings in addition to his usual signet. Chloe suddenly felt under-dressed, as if she’d come to a ball in her work clothes, but Lucifer paraded along as if they were, indeed, the devil with his infernal consort.

Although the bar was clearly closed, it had been decorated with a line of scarecrows that sat or leaned or hung from nearly invisible wires, each amusingly garbed in contemporary nightclub wear. “Mixing your themes, a bit, aren’t you?” Chloe asked, surveying them.

“It’s Los Angeles,” he protested cheerfully. “The Real Scarecrows of L.A. enjoy a bit of a tipple and a touch of glamour just like the rest of us.” 

“Oh, do they? Somehow that’s never come up at our usual corn mazes.” Amused, she wandered the length of the bar, looking at all the details. On the last bar stool, one scarecrow wore a familiar red dress with a rhinestone halter neck and impressive straw cleavage. “Is that the dress I wore for the Player after party sting?”

Lucifer strolled over to the straw figure and trailed one finger along the line of jewels. “It did look far more fetching on you, Detective.” Suggestion warmed his voice. “If you’d like it for tonight, I’m sure our friend here won’t complain.”

She ignored him. “What’s it even still doing here?”

“Well, it will come as no surprise that rather a lot of L.A. ladies, and not a few of the men, fit the scarecrow template perhaps rather too effectively.” He shrugged. “Thin, as they say, is perhaps unfortunately all too in. But it means the guest closets in the penthouse have become an excellent resource for last-minute stage dressing for this theme.”  

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Really? How hard is it for your overnight guests to remember to take their clothes in the morning?”

“I've told you, Detective,” he grinned. “Any time you'd care to find out first-hand, my bedroom door is always open.”

“You don’t  _ have  _ a bedroom door,” she corrected, a little more waspishly than she intended. 

“As I said, always open.” 

She snorted and quickly turned her attention to another scarecrow suspended awkwardly near the massive Lux sign. The rough-tied limbs poked out of a grey Henley, jeans, and a brown leather jacket creased with regular wear. One of its hands was shoved into the jacket pocket, as if it was trying too hard to look cool to the other scarecrows, while the other held something small, white and plastic. 

Chloe stepped closer, staring at the empty vanilla pudding cup. She’d definitely seen these before, too. “Lucifer! Are these Dan’s clothes?”

He smirked. “Well, he shouldn’t leave them hanging around at work.”

“You raided the locker room at the precinct?” Dan was probably searching everywhere for that coat.

“And the refrigerator,” Lucifer supplied agreeably. “But I only took one pudding this time. Well, two. They are quite irresistible.”

“Did you ask him if you could borrow his coat?” She cut herself off. “No, of course you didn’t.”

His toothy smile suggested that he knew precisely what he’d done. “Well, you told me to keep things appropriate for the children. What better for that than absentee fathers and pudding?”

“Dan’s not an absentee father just because he has to work on Halloween, Lucifer,” Chloe said, torn between irritation and reluctant amusement. “And aren’t the station lockers, you know, locked?”

Lucifer shrugged. “Well, not Detective Douche's. Why re-lock an empty locker?''

The sound of skipping feet echoed from the wall of faux-corn. Chloe crouched, trying to peer below the line of leaves to catch a glimpse of Trixie's sneakers. No luck, but — “Wait,” she said slowly, stepping up to the artificial greenery. She touched a stalk, parting the green paper streamers to reveal a gleam of brass. “Are these  _ stripper poles _ ?”

“Exotic dancer poles, Detective,” Lucifer corrected primly. “And regardless of nomenclature, they’re sturdy enough to do the job. Wouldn’t want tiny cheaters just shoving everything over, would we?” He ran a leaf between his long fingers. “It’s not the usual kind of green such things are meant to invoke. But then, I don’t suppose our guests will ‘make it rain’ in the usual manner, either.”  Obligingly, the audio track shifted to the rumble of distant thunder, of rain and wind ghosting through fields. The piano thrummed along with a halting lower register melody. 

Chloe sighed, but even she had to admit it was a rather clever and artful solution to the problem of creating an indoor corn maze. She just hoped the school parents and administration didn’t look too closely.

Lucifer gestured for her to follow, strolling along the edge of the field. “Dana promised me they’d do for our purposes, and she might even get a little bit of a shoot in once we close tonight. After all the work involved setting it up, it seems a waste not to use it for something more permanent. Unless the child army contaminates it beyond repair, that is.”

“And who’s Dana?” Chloe wondered if she should even ask.

“Well, I  _ was _ rather inspired after my understandable misapprehension of this morning, Detective. It gave me a fantastic idea for where to find set pieces, lighting, expert direction and skilled physical performers to bulk up the usual Lux staff.”

“Oh, no,” she said, looking back at the maze. “Trixie’s not going to come to a dead end and find a naked person, is she?”

“Of course not, Detective. But as a former actress yourself, I thought you’d approve of the partnership. I mean, after all, your own film debut was almost as racy in its day as—.” He must have seen her growing scowl because he held up bejeweled hands placatingly. “Now, now, Detective. I merely had some friends in the pornography industry who owed me favors. I mean, who do you think inspired John Stagliano to found Evil Angel Studios?”

Chloe shook her head. “John who?”

“Really, Detective. After  _ Hot Tub High School, _ one would suppose you had expanded your sexual horizons a bit. But no matter. John’s not the right person for this job, so he sent us Dana Vespoli on short notice; she’s probably the better director, anyway.”  Suddenly arch, he grinned before adding, “She’s really the  _ cream of the crop  _ at Evil Angel.”

Groaning softly, Chloe buried her face in one hand. “Creamed corn puns. Really?” As the full range of meanings came to her, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s actually pretty gross given that we’re talking about porn stars.”  _ Cream.  _ She knew she shouldn’t encourage him, but couldn’t help herself. _ Crop.“ _ Don’t tell me. She specializes in dominatrix videos?”

“Ooooo. Brava, Detective. I take it back; your horizons might be more expansive, after all. I’d love to find out someday.” He hurried on before she could react. “I’d imagine there’s a  _ kernel  _ of truth to that, too.” He paused, head tilted, apparently thinking hard. “Nope. No double entendre for that one. Not without a pretty awful work-around.”

“Thank God.”

“Definitely not something He’d enjoy, Detective. Thank Dana, instead. You have to admit, all this looks spectacular.” He took in the entire room with a sweeping gesture, then grimaced and lowered his arm slowly.

Chloe peered up at him. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “Still just paying the price for refusing my Father’s latest joke. Again.” He flexed his shoulders stiffly. “It’s nothing.”

Somewhere buried behind the screen of stripper-pole corn, Chloe heard her daughter start giggling madly, the squeak and thud of sneakers running.

Lucifer clapped his hands together, obviously shaking off whatever kept bothering him.“Come, Detective. I finally invested in one of those inflatable slides, and Dana says it’s given her some new ideas for movies. Humans and their turn-ons, right? Never ceases to amuse.”

“So, there’s more to all this?” Chloe asked, mostly to redirect the conversation from the obvious questions about inflatables and turn-ons.

“Why, of course! Games for all ages in the private rooms. You really must see the cornhole gallery.”

She fixed him with a look that might have made Maze take a step back. “Lucifer, I swear—” she began.

“I know, Detective! I was terribly disappointed, as well. A name like ‘cornhole’ really promises so much more.”

“Only to you, I think.”

“But I’m told small humans love it just as it is. I borrowed most of the games from Roxbury Park, so there’s plenty to keep the underaged and their handlers out of trouble tonight. Sort of a whole  _ pop- _ up indoor playground, if you will.” He waited a beat, glanced sideways at her. “What? No response to  _ pop-up,  _ Detective? Phallic or corny ?”

She pulled a face.  “How long have you been working on awful corn puns?”

“All evening,” came Maze’s dry voice. “If I hear ‘Maze’s Amazing Maize Maze’ one more time, I may experiment with new places to shove corn cobs.” She pushed past the plush grey curtains at the side of the club  and stalked toward them on stiletto-heeled boots.

“Promises, promises,” Lucifer replied, unruffled.

As the other woman turned into the light, Chloe's breath caught in a mixture of surprise, horror, and awe. Half of Mazikeen’s elegant face had been replaced with a grisly ruin of exposed muscle and twisted, dry tendons. The gleam of bone framed one sightless eye, and her bare, skeletal teeth seemed fixed in a permanent snarl. 

“Here.” Maze thrust a real pitchfork at Lucifer. “You left this in the ball pit.”

He scowled and took the farm tool with bad grace. “I was tired of lugging it around.”

“Tough. You wanted to be  _ this  _ silly version of youself. So, carry the damn pitchfork.” Maze turned to Chloe, almost belligerent. “Well?”

Chloe stared, open-mouthed at the sheer realism of her roommate’s facial prosthetic. It flexed as she spoke, grotesque and disturbing, seamless in its integration with her otherwise flawless skin. 

In the silence, Maze lifted her chin, all attitude and affront. Her normal eye narrowed to a glittering slit. “What, Decker? See something you can’t handle?”

Chloe flushed, taken aback by Mazikeen’s hostility. She tore her eyes away from the gruesome half-face to take in the rest of her guise—the old, charred leather armor, stained with what looked like layers of ancient blood spatter. Buckles and belts cinched weapons within easy reach, the familiar karambits tucked at her hip, a sword at her back, chains and some kind of multi-tongued lash criss-crossed over her breasts. Meeting the fierce gaze, Chloe said with feeling, “Maze, you look badass.”

The skull teeth didn’t change, but the human side of Maze’s face softened into a relieved grin—a combination somehow even more horrifying.“Thanks, girl. I haven't had a chance strut my best look for years.” She shifted the breastplate, well-worn leather creaking. “I told  _ His Lordship _ you wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

This last was clearly directed at Lucifer, but he was watching Chloe with a curious frown.

“Why would I have a problem with it?” Chloe asked. “It’s incredible.”

“It is,” Lucifer agreed quietly, sounding thoughtful. “And I hear that Mazikeen has been quite inspired tonight. Well, Maze? Care to show us what you’ve done Below?”

Chloe could hear the capital letter in his tone. “Below?”

“The prohibition tunnels,” he reminded her, gesturing toward the rear of the main room. “We’ve always used some of them for storage, of course, but with our new Heritage Site designation—thanks to you, Detective—we’ve started restoring others to their original poorly lit, uneven-footing, booze-running glory. They are quite labyrinthine.”

“Perfect for the halls of Hell,” Maze added with relish. “Doors and dead-ends and musty, dust-choked air.” She drew a deep, luxurious breath and closed her eyes. “It’s glorious.”

Chloe almost startled when the misty white left eye shuttered closed, blinking and twitching like living flesh. How on earth did the make-up artist  _ do  _ that? How much money had Lucifer actually spent arranging all of this?

“Maze’s own little homage to home, or so she tells me.” While Maze savored the moment, Lucifer slipped the pitchfork out of sight behind one of the concrete columns and dusted off his hands, satisfied. “Father forbid the Devil and his Right-Hand not deliver a proper scare on Halloween. And who better to design one than the Mistress of Maltreatment, herself?”

“And once again,” Chloe said, “Is it suitable for kids?”

“Nope!” Maze’s ghastly face split into a huge, excited grin. “It’s also where we put the grown-up punch bowl. Gotta go through Hell to get to the good stuff, right? Teachers should be used to that.”

“Uh-huh.” Chloe had to admit there was something almost charming about her roommate’s over-eager glee.Charming, and terrifying. “And what about all the elementary school children?”

“No one underage goes down, and one of the bartenders will be guarding the stairs all night. Believe me, they’re good at age assessment,” Lucifer assured her. “Come, Detective. See for yourself.”

Now Mazikeen hesitated. “I’ll show her,” she said in an overly-casual tone, mismatched gaze sliding past him. “You don’t need to go with us.”

He stopped, frowning at her. “What? Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’re—” Maze seemed to grope for a response. She finally flailed a hand at his costume. “You’re not  _ That Devil _ tonight. You’re supposed to be up here.”

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed. “Mazikeen. What aren’t you saying?”

“Nothing.”

His voice hardened. “What have you done, Maze?”

She turned on him, bristling. “What I said I would! I made it as much like home as  _ I  _ wanted.”

“So?”

Maze’s human half-face grimaced but looked undaunted; the monster half seemed incapable of showing emotion, but its skull teeth ground together audibly.  “So, I didn’t make it for you. You don’t have to like it.”

Lucifer frowned, confused, and Chloe decided she’d better move things along. The evening was ticking away, and there was still an entire school waiting outside the nightclub doors. She turned briskly to Maze, “So, where’s the entrance?”

Maze’s one dark eye looked grateful, and she stalked off around the corn field, leaving the others to follow.

Lucifer grumbled until they passed the raised piano. The striking African pianist crouched on the edge of the platform, and he stretched one long arm gingerly up to brush his fingertips against hers. “Nada, darling,” Chloe heard him murmur in fond greeting. The woman’s teeth flashed in a brilliant smile, her nearly-black eyes glittering down at them. She replied in a rolling, musical language Chloe didn’t recognize, but Lucifer chuckled, their interaction like old friends. “Yes, she is quite lovely,” he answered in English, glancing at Chloe with a hint of pride. “Feisty, too. Independent. Stubborn. Something else which you both share. And which I appreciate perhaps more than the Dream Lord ever did.”

Chloe blushed and stared up at the dais. The other woman touched the center of her own chest then extended her hand toward Chloe as if in blessing with a wide, approving smile.

“Who is that?” Chloe asked when Maze and Lucifer didn’t stop for introductions.

“Someone placed in my care long ago, before I came to my senses,” he answered with a shrug. “She exists elsewhere these days. But as it’s All Hallows', Detective, and slouching toward the very darkest hours, the barriers between her world and this are at their thinnest. She’s come of her own free will.” He sounded a little wistful. “Something I am glad she was given at the end.”

Playing along with his sudden somberness, Chloe nodded as though she understood, impressed with the depth of backstory Lucifer had fashioned for his peculiar playground. As always, she couldn’t fault his creativity or his commitment to the fantasy. 

In a sudden rustle of leaves and giggles, Trixie burst out of the the corn field behind them with a triumphant whoop. “I made it!”  Panting with exertion and excitement, she spun around to wave at the scarecrow that had clearly play-chased her to the exit. It lingered just inside the maze, applauding in soft, approving claps. Trixie bounded back to hug the costumed figure tightly, then, catching sight of her mother, raced over. 

_ Not too scary for children, after all,  _ Chloe thought with a smile.  _ At least, not for my daughter. _  “How was it, monkey?” she asked. 

“Awesome! The monsters talk to you! Can I go again?” She sucked in air between phrases, torn between talking and catching her breath, her face shining with delight. “Can I? Please? Please? Oh—” She stopped suddenly. “What’s Maze doing?”

In all the usual crowded glitter of Lux, Chloe had never noticed before how the corners of the club gathered shadows. The velvet curtains gave way at the very back to black-painted concrete walls and a network of lighting grids and industrial pipes. Maze ran her fingers over the blank, black wall, and after a moment, a low click sounded from below their feet. A seam of dim blue light split the floor just in front of them.

“Whoa,” Trixie said softly, dropping to her knees beside what seemed to be a hidden trap door.

“Out of the way, little human.” Hooking her fingers into the seam, Maze hauled the section of flooring open on creaking hinges. Ghostly blue light flowed up and out like fog, washing over her in a faint eerie glow, illuminating the steep stairs below for several feet before fading into dust and haze. “Abandon all hope, bitches,” Mazikeen announced with a fierce grin.

Trixie scooted forward to peer down into the old stairwell only to be arrested by Maze’s grip on her collar. 

“Grown-ups only,” Maze said. “I promised.”

“Awwwww, Maze!” Trixie protested. “It’s Halloween!”

Chloe shook her head. “You'll have nightmares—”

“Please?” Trixie looked imploringly at Maze, who shrugged.

“Whatever. Send her to my room if she has nightmares, Decker. I don't care. I kinda get off on nightmares.”

“No,” Chloe said quickly. “There’s a reason why she’s not allowed in your room. Several of them. Most on display.”

Trixie wriggled and clasped her hands together. “Please, please, please!” she pleaded. “Lucifer, help!”

Lucifer exchanged a glance with the little girl, then huffed. “Oh, fine. Part of the deal, I suppose. Come, Detective.” In an all-too-reasonable voice, he continued to Chloe, “She’ll have the Devil at her back, Hell’s Favorite Torturer leading the way, and her brave and stalwart police mother beside her. Besides, if it’s actually anything like Hell, the worst will be behind closed doors. The labyrinth itself is, essentially, harmless. Confusing and eternal, but harmless.”

“Um.” Maze’s half-face twisted with uncertainty. “Actually, Lucifer, there is one thing you should know—”

“And it’s blue,” Trixie interrupted, pointing down the stairwell as if the color made her case. “Blue’s not even that scary.”

Maze drew herself up, indignant. “It is. Especially when I’m there.”

“Hell’s supposed to be red,” Trixie pointed out with the weighty wisdom of a nine-year old. “And hot. Like fire.” 

“How would you know?”

“It’s in all the movies!”

Before the bickering took on a life of its own, Chloe intervened. “Just where have you been watching movies set in hell?” She threw an exasperated glare at Mazikeen. “And who’s been showing them to you?”

“Halloween, Decker. Duh,” Maze said, as though it were obvious and forgave all breaking of house rules.

Chloe pursed her lips together and breathed through her nose, gathering her retort.

She almost failed to register the dark figure rising behind her daughter. Hunched beneath a heavy cloak, it felt its way along the stairwell as if blind. Broad, male hands reached out of the shroud of the cloak, skin blackened and blistered, seared entirely away in patches. The fingers groped in the air, spidered along the edge of the trap door. The hooded face lifted as if sniffing the air.

Feeling motion behind her, Trixie turned. For a breath, she stood frozen, her eyes riveted on the face above her.

Then she screamed.

Adrenaline flooded Chloe’s system at the sound, instinctive and immediate. Leaping forward, she grabbed her daughter, dragged her away from the trap door and the creeping, burned figure. As she stumbled backward, she glimpsed the hidden face—a flash of blood and shadow, inhuman, somehow horribly wrong. 

Lucifer, too, seemed galvanized by the child’s cry. Growling savagely, he surged past Mazikeen to seize the stranger by the throat. Hauling him from the stairwell, he slammed him against the closest wall in a explosion of metal scaffolding. A pained wheeze burst from the figure’s lungs. Blistered hands flailed feebly at Lucifer’s iron grip.

“Lucifer!” Maze snapped, voice unusually shrill. “Lucifer! Don’t!”

Lucifer pinned the interloper against the wall with one implacable hand, staring beneath the hood, his own breath rasping and harsh. “What is this?” he hissed, teeth bared furiously. “Who dares?” 

He ripped back the hood to reveal a face out of nightmare, red skin seamed and cracked as if by a nuclear holocaust. Hairless, sticky with congealed blood and scabs, the skull-like visage distorted painfully, mouth gaping for air. Phosphorescent red eyes widened, flicked back and forth across dark sclera as if seeking escape. 

“Who  _ dares?”  _ Lucifer roared again, looming over the horrible figure.

The man, if it was a man, whimpered and went limp, shrinking against the wall. 

Chloe’s stomach roiled, queasy at the horror of what should have once been human—the blackened, bloody monstrosity--and at her partner’s palpable rage.

“Who?” Lucifer demanded viciously.

“Just me!” The choked whisper was human, shattered with shock and fear. “It’s me, Boss.” A gulping gasp. “You hired me like three weeks ago for the bar?”  Another uncomfortable wheeze. “I’m supposed to be in the tunnels tonight? Miss Maze said—” He slipped down the wall as Lucifer’s grip loosened, sprawling in a tangle of limbs and ragged cloak, everything as charred as his theatrically made-up skin.

Sidling over to the two men, Maze reached for Lucifer’s back as if trying to draw his attention from the downed employee. But when her fingertips brushed hi shoulder blade, he whipped around on her with a animal snarl.

  
It might have been the first time Chloe had ever seen her roommate flinch. 

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you,” Maze said quietly, holding her ground. “Guy’s been in make-up for most of the evening. Looks good, right?”

“You.” Lucifer’s glared at her, drew a steadying breath. “You did this.”

Maze planted her feet, prepared for battle. “Well,  _ you _ wouldn’t.”

“Mazikeen . . .” Warning lay thick in his voice.

“I hired the best effects artist for this one,” she charged on, stubborn. “Most expensive effects in the entire club. I was going to tell you. Eventually.”

He glowered.

“Look, you wanted to be all horns and swishy tail.” She sounded disgusted. “But I wanted  _ my  _ Hell.  _ My  _ home. And that includes the Lord of the Underworld. The First of the Fallen. The actual Devil. Not some—” Maze cut herself off and looked away, her jaw clenching. “I know you’re upset about your face and your wings. But I miss it sometimes, Lucifer. I miss home, even if I don't want to be there right now.”

Chloe felt Trixie slip away from her. The little girl dodged around Maze and Lucifer’s legs and dropped to her knees beside the unfortunate bartender-turned-monstosity. He didn’t seem to notice her, his worried red eyes locked on his employers.

“Does it hurt?” Trixie asked him softly.

“What?” The man gave a small start, looked at her in confusion.

“It looks like it hurts a lot,” the child told him. She touched his mottled cheek with one tentative finger. “Especially your face.”

Lucifer drew a sharp breath, turned to stare at the child. 

The bartender huffed quietly, prosthetics gaping at the corners of a small smile. “It’s just an illusion. Hollywood special effects.” Sitting up, he flexed his hands for her, demonstrating. The cracked and blackened nails, the burned-away skin and open swaths of muscle all stretched and buckled like a latex glove. “See? It can’t hurt. It’s not actually me.”

“Oh, I know,” Trixie told him, nodding. “You're like the scarecrows in the maze. But it still  _ looks _ like it really hurt.” 

“It did,” Lucifer muttered to himself. Chloe wasn’t entirely sure she’d heard him, and when she turned to ask, she found his attention locked on the child and the fallen monster. 

Trixie tapped one small finger on her lips, thinking. “I know!” she announced after a minute of hard thought. “You need a hug. Hugs make it all better.” And she flung her arms around the bartender’s neck, squeezing him tightly.

Lucifer cleared his throat, sounding a little strangled. 

From within the child’s exuberant arms, the bartender started to laugh, his sudden lightness turning the destroyed face more human. “Yeah, thanks, kid,” he chuckled, relaxing into the hug and returning it with warmth. “And sorry for the scare, okay? I heard Miss Maze and wanted to check in. Didn’t know you’d be with her up here. I can't see super well in these contacts."

“That’s okay. I’m not scared.” Trixie backed away, still holding his hand, and beamed. “You make a really good Char Man,” she said seriously.

Vivid alien eyes blinked, tracked from person to person curiously. “What man? Is that like a local legend or something?”

“The Char Man,” Trixie repeated, insistent. “You know, the man on the bridge? The one in the car fire?”

Chloe knew the legend, a famous California ghost tale about a man, burned beyond recognition in a car crash, attacking people who stopped on a particular bridge in Ventura County. Growing up, she’d heard the tale plenty of times—and, as a teen, had even gone with friends to stand on the bridge and dare the monster-ghost to appear. 

Of course, he never had. Nor had she ever expected it. It might be fun to pretend on Halloween, but Chloe Decker was, if nothing else, a realist.  _ With ‘the devil’ for a partner,  _ she reminded herself wryly.  

The bartender shoved himself to his feet with a wary glance at Lucifer. “Sounds like a pretty cool story. Miss Maze just told me I’m supposed to be the devil. You know, Hell’s Big Bad.” 

“I think,” Lucifer cut in, voice tight, "that it’s far past time to let the gibbering prepubescent hordes into our playground.” He turned with a flare of coat and strode away from the open trap door decisively, his devil’s tail bouncing behind him. “Come on, you lot. We're done here."

“But I want to go downstairs!” Trixie said, trailing after him reluctantly. “I’m not scared of the Char Man!”

He kept walking. "Maybe you should be, urchin. There are some Devils you don’t need to know.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little Halloween in March? Yes? Would love reader thoughts. I have grave feelings that this chapter just doesn't work for many reasons, but I'm refusing to rewrite it yet again.
> 
> The Char Man of Ventura County is apparently a "real" legend. Evil Angel porn studios is also real. And the nod to Nada is from the Sandman comics. This is what happens when you do too much research for a story and stubbornly pack it all in.


	4. A Hell of Your Own Making

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of this Halloween night can't come soon enough for Lucifer. The Detective's annoyed with him, Maze is laughing at him, and Trixie is suddenly no where to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, another chapter! This was supposed to be the conclusion ... but these characters won't stop talking long enough for me to wrap up the plot. One more chapter will finish it, however, but until then, I hope you enjoy this long-delayed installment.

No one knew better than the Devil Himself that Hell was always of your own making. He had just never expected the adage to apply so readily to him—especially not outside of the Infernal borders. 

But here he was. 

After too many hours of smiling awkwardly at the urchin’s teachers and dodging swarms of unpredictable, over-sugared offspring, Lucifer felt he had more than upheld his end of their bargain. As the night dragged on—surely far past the bedtime of everyone in attendance, adults included—Lucifer sat at his own bar and made a note to never again be lured into an open pact with young Beatrice Decker. The child had an uncanny ability to beat him at his own machinations. How  _ did  _ she manage to consistently get the best of a deal with the Devil? He was impressed, yes, but as midnight vanished into morning, he felt increasingly justified in pointing everyone toward the exit.

Unfortunately, doing so would require moving. And he wasn't sure he wanted to do that just at the moment, either.

Slumped on a stool between two scarecrows, Lucifer rested his forehead against the cool, smooth surface of the bar for several breaths and wished his people had been a bit less thorough when hiding the scotch. His flask was long empty and his debonair costume disheveled. He’d shed his fancy tailcoat after a child galloped headfirst into him with a cup of fuzzy-navel-flavored punch, but he could still smell the sickeningly sweet slush in the fabric of his waistcoat. A pack of free-roaming milfs (who’d clearly spent much of their evening at the grown-up punch bowl downstairs) had found him trying to clean up in the office and eagerly backed him onto the bookkeeping desk in their efforts to “help.” This included several attempts—admittedly quite imaginative—at re-purposing his devil tail. They successfully absconded with his cravat and several shirt buttons before he could slide out of their very exploratory hands. It wasn’t that they were unattractive, but he didn’t think the Detective would appreciate him raising tonight’s rating to NC-17 with members of the PTO. 

The marble beneath his forehead felt deliciously cool, so much so that he wondered if the extended proximity of so many human spawn carried some sort of species-jumping contagion, left him feverish as well as weary. He snorted, not raising his head. Wouldn’t it be his luck if this inane event caught the attention of Pestilence herself, and ushered in the Apocalypse a decade early? 

To be honest, it didn’t sound like the worst outcome.

His back ached constantly now. The wounds where he’d excised his wings this morning felt fresh and raw against his shirt. Ever since his altercation with Maze’s Devil-faced bartender, Lucifer had had the disconcerting sensation that they were bleeding again, a vague warm tackiness beneath his clothes. The usual post-wingectomy discomfort had grown into a steady thrum of pain that made him think spending so much of the day in the Detective’s presence might also have not been the best idea. 

For perhaps the third time in their partnership, Lucifer thought he might be ready to put a little (temporary) distance between himself and the source of his vulnerability. Eight hours or so, he thought, should bring him back up to his usual Devilish best.

“There you are.” The Detective’s voice behind him was faintly teasing. “I thought you’d be hiding downstairs away from the—what was it again?” The bad British accent she adopted sounded nothing like him. “The slavering prepubescent hordes?” Amused, she slid up beside him, trailed her fingers almost playfully across his shoulders.

At her touch, Lucifer straightened with a hiss of breath.

The light fingers (cattle prods, hot irons, knives) snatched themselves away, and he could hear her sudden concern. “Lucifer? What's wrong?”

He swung the bar stool around to face her with a teeth-gritting smile. “It’s nothing, Detective. I told you.” He allowed himself one breath, two, waiting for the pain to subside to an echo of itself, aware of the Detective’s clever, searching eyes. But as this wasn’t something he wanted to explain (not yet, not here, not to her), he kept the grin in place and looked down at himself instead. Moving gingerly, he smoothed down the half-open, mostly buttonless dress shirt and straightened his stained waistcoat. “Let's  just say I can see why you sometimes neglect to attend the school’s Parent-Teacher coven.”

“Okay,” she agreed slowly, taking in his disheveled state. “I’m not sure I want to ask, but what happened to you?”

“Soccer moms, I think.” Pushing his fingers through his dark hair, he discovered one of his prosthetic devil horns was also missing. No doubt another souvenir. 

Chloe narrowed her eyes, a familiar expression that said she wasn’t certain if he was joking or serious. 

He moved on without further explanation. “I was just thinking it might be time to shuffle our guests toward the exit,” he suggested, hopeful. “I mean, that should be its own kind of novelty, don’t you think? I never actually escorted the damned back  _ out  _ of the Infernal Gates before.”

“It is late.” Chloe’s frown was interrupted by a half-stifled yawn. “I really am surprised people stayed so long.”

“Hell has something for everyone.” Lucifer started to shrug, but stopped himself abruptly at a sharp complaint from his back. “Free booze never hurts. Cocaine is always better, but — I didn’t, Detective! Not for this party.” A thoughtful pause. “Do you know,  _ childcare _ seems remarkably addictive for some of this lot, too.”

Chloe smiled, her pale eyes shining in a way that made Lucifer briefly forget his own weariness. Whatever else tonight had done, his Detective seemed more relaxed than he’d seen her in days, even this morning at the Park. All her usual daytime stressors seemed absent, and a soft encroaching sleepiness sat on her like a comfortable blanket. He liked the look on her very, very much.

“This was fun,” she said. Her voice was warm, earnest. “Thank you, Lucifer.”

The Devil pushed himself up straighter on the bar stool. “You’re very welcome, of course,” he returned gravely. “But I  _ did _ owe your devious little sprog for a favor. Your thanks go more to Maze, actually. I hesitate to suggest she did it out of her own good heart, for obvious reasons, but a great deal of tonight was her doing.”

“I will.” Chloe glanced back toward the open trap door to the prohibition tunnels, currently hidden by the wall of fake corn. “I think I’m glad I never asked Maze help decorate the apartment for Halloween, though.”

He raised one eyebrow.

“Oh, she’s incredibly creative,” Chloe continued. “In all the creepiest, wrongest ways. Everything downstairs is so—so—” She searched for words. 

“Disturbed?” Lucifer offered with a quirk of a smile. “Genuinely demonic? It should be.”

“Some rooms were what I’d expect, you know? Pretty realistic, slasher-movie-come-to-life kinds of things. But there were severaI I just couldn’t quite wrap my head around. I’m not sure I  _ want _ to really understand them.” Chloe shuddered. 

“Hell is a very personal thing. Always terrible. Uniquely so.” He heard the sudden strain in his own voice and changed conversational tracks, unwilling to spoil the Detective’s good mood or linger over his own past. “But I’m glad it seems to have been cathartic, at any rate. Any favorite bits? Not that I intend to do this again any time soon. Or ever.”

Chloe laughed, leaning back against the bar beside him. “Probably some of the pyrotechnics downstairs. I have no idea how you managed to get the permits to use some of those things indoors. And underground. Blue-white heat? Open flames? I’d have thought they would be a huge fire and smoke hazard.”

Lucifer watched the Detective for a few beats without comment and could actually see her decide not to ask all the obvious questions about legality and safety. Her lips parted, then closed again, thinned momentarily, and she gave a small, wry shake of her head and lapsed into silence. Charmed by her restraint, he said, “Maze is especially skilled when it comes to fires, as you might expect from someone born to it, but we did agree that the oldest tunnels should be off-limits. They’re often a bit damp and cool, but the century-old wood is sometimes suspect and probably more flammable than it should be. Besides, a club fire isn’t much fun. And your fire department colleagues can be so tedious.”

“Tedious,” Chloe repeated, cutting her eyes over at him. “As we saw this morning, you mean, when they stopped Roxbury Park from burning to the ground. You know, saving lives and property.”

“Yes, well.” Another abortive half-shrug.  “I never said they weren’t  _ heroic _ ; just tedious.”

She looked at the excited children in their Halloween costumes darting in and out of the wall of faux-corn behind them. “You realize no haunted maze will ever live up to this again, right? Not Roxbury Park. Not even the huge ones in the county.”

Lucifer couldn’t help but preen, brushing at the dried speckles of punch on one white sleeve. “As you say, Detective.”

“So, you haven’t told me what  _ you _ thought yet,” Chloe said, turning back to him. “Did Maze’s design of hell satisfy your vision or whatever?”

“I honestly wouldn’t know. Haven’t been downstairs.”

“You haven’t?” She sounded surprised. “Why not?”

Lucifer shifted on his bar stool. “Maze made it quite clear that my role was up here,” he finally replied, but he wasn’t sure he sounded convincing. He didn’t feel convinced.

“I thought she made it pretty clear she also really wanted you down there, too. She’s so proud of it. You should at least see what she’s done before you shut it down.”

“Someone had to keep an eye on the upstairs activities, Detective.” He didn’t like the defensiveness that seeped in his voice, and he could see by her frown that she heard it, too.  He tried again. “I mean to say, what if all of these charming little poppets suddenly turned on us as one, all flat-eyed and stabby?”

Her eyes narrowed, speculative.

“ _ Children of the Corn _ ?” he tried. “Really, Detective, you’d think in your line of work you’d be more aware of such possibilities.”

“You aren’t worried about unsupervised evil children—although that would explain some of your usual behavior around Trixie. Why didn’t you go downstairs?”

He folded arms, wincing when the gesture pulled at his wounds. “I saw all that I needed to see,” he said tightly.

“You saw the trap door.” She ticked it off on her fingers. “The weird blue lights. And the Char Man, obviously. That’s not very much.”

“It was enough.” When she just stared at him, he added reluctantly. “Some people don’t like looking in the mirror, Detective.”

She snorted. “Well, that’s certainly not you, Lucifer.” To his surprise, she reached out and straightened his collar, smoothed a lock of tousled hair back at his temple, tucking it around his remaining horn. “You’ve never met a mirror you didn’t love. Don’t think I haven’t seen you checking yourself in the interrogation room two-way.”

“Vanity has nothing to do with this,” he groused, a little thrown by her gesture. “But I’m the Devil, if you’ll remember. Pride is quite in character.”

She waited, expectant.

He sighed. “If you must know, the Char Man, as you call him, reminded me that I didn’t have to subject myself to a re-creation of the place I ruled for millennia—against my will, if you’ll recall. I’m not really inclined to go back again. Even to fulfil a debt to your spawn.”

The sound from behind him was half-snort, half-purr. “Your loss.” Mazikeen strolled over and stretched herself, cat-like, against the bar beside Chloe. “You’re missing out on all of the really Hellish fun. Remember how much fun it could be?”

Lucifer’s eyes roamed over the demon’s lithe form, the blood-stained armor, the sleek white half-mask that obscured the monstrous side of her face. She radiated pleasure and the scents of smoke and something brackish that reminded him of the pits of Effrul. “Well, well, if it isn’t Mazikeen of the Lilim,” he said, donning an approving smile and a touch of formality. “It must have been fun, indeed. Hell’s Favorite Torturer has quite the afterglow tonight. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you quite so sated.”

Maze gave him a slow grin. “It feels good to go through the motions, even if it’s not real. And those pornography people really know how to writhe and beg.” She sucked on her lower lip, eyelids heavy. “I may even have a few repeat customers, off the books. That Dana chick...” she trailed off, savoring.

Chloe wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Not at the apartment when Trixie might be home,” she reminded her roommate. “Or when I’m home, come to think of it. How about not at the apartment at all?”

Maze rolled her dark eyes at the detective. “Don’t start going backward now, Decker. You made some awesome strides tonight.”

Chloe frowned, suddenly suspicious. “What does that mean?”

“Yes, what  _ does  _ that mean, Maze?” Lucifer echoed.

“I mean bed-before-10-Decker actually allowed her precious daughter downstairs. Even after all that ‘you’re too young and innocent’ business. The squirt’s been having a blast in the prohibition tunnels.” With a toothy grin, Maze tossed one arm over the Detective’s shoulders and squeezed. “Good parenting, Chlo. Way to show these boring humans how it’s done.”

“Wait.” Chloe ducked out of the mock-embrace. “Trixie was downstairs?”

“Oh yeah. I let her hold my bone saw once—but she made it all cutesy and adorable. Totally ruined the mood.” She shrugged. “So, I kicked her out.”

“You sent her back upstairs?”

“Nah. Just out. Lots more to do besides an old-fashioned vivisection.”

Chloe was already moving toward the trap door. “You promised me your guards at the entrance had things in hand.” She seized Lucifer’s arm to drag him along behind her, oblivious to his pained grunt.

Maze blocked the Detective’s path. “Wait. So, you  _ didn’t _ make a special deal with the minion at the door?”

“Of course not!”

“That’s disappointing,” Maze sighed. Her eyes flicked to Lucifer. “Then I guess the kid did that all on her own. Which is pretty baller, too. Seems  _ someone _ taught her how to bargain really, really well.”

“Oh, great,” Chloe said sourly, pushing past her. “How many other kids were down there? Their parents are going to grab some of these pitchforks and torches and come after me for this.”

“Don’t get your granny panties in a wad, Decker.” Maze fell into easy step with the Detective, rounding the corn field at a full march. “I didn’t see any other kids, and one of my guys was on the door all night.” She slowed down, thinking. “Well, except for a few minutes when he had to show a couple of weenie adult humans toward the exit. And that big one who had the panic attack over the clowns. And the two who puked in—.” She stopped abruptly, looking more delighted than repentant. “Okay, so maybe door coverage  _ has _ been spotty, but my Hell-scenes are clearly the bomb.”

“So, no consistent guard, after all,” Chloe grated as she beelined towards the Lux staffer now sitting beside the open trap door. “Are you actually watching this?” she demanded of him, no-nonsense cop persona falling in place like a second skin. “How long have you been here? And stayed here?”

The young man turned his luridly painted face up toward her, quizzical and a little annoyed. His eyes widened when he saw Mazikeen and Lucifer behind her, and he scrambled to his feet, stammering. ”Um. Just an hour or so? I came in from valet about then? I think?”

“You haven’t let any little kids past you?” Chloe demanded. “In or out?”

“What?” Panic flickered in his eyes, and he shook his head vehemently. “No. Of course not! I mean, I’d always let them out, of course. If they were ever in. Which they wouldn’t be.”

“Right.” Chloe spun toward Maze, anger sharpening her voice. “That means Trixie’s been down there for an hour? How long has been since you saw her?”

Mazikeen rotated one careless shoulder. “Couple of hours? I didn’t keep track.”

“Detective,” Lucifer began, “I told you—”

She cut him off. “You told me that children wouldn’t be downstairs in that R-rated nightmare. Trixie already has enough bad dreams without you two filling her head with more.”

“Fine, Detective. Fine.” Lucifer spread his hands in exaggerated surrender. “Never fear. Maze will find your sneaky, willful, clever little spawn.” He glared at the demon, who was still looking distinctly smug. 

“ _ We  _ will find her,” Chloe corrected him, pointing down into the stairwell.

He hummed noncommittally. “Assuming she even wants to be found. Detective, perhaps you should be impressed instead of annoyed? She’s clearly far ahead of the curve compared to the rest of these muppety get.” Lucifer gestured expansively at the children scattered all around the club and had to stifle a curse as he did so. Pain radiated down his spine at the movement, trailing heat and nausea behind it. 

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

The Detective took his hesitation for reluctance (a not entirely wrong assumption). “I’ll take the main hall,” she bit out. “You two search the branches since I assume you know your way around.” 

Even with his eyes shut, Lucifer could feel her turn away, hear her boot heels on the concrete stairs as she led the way below. As the pain began to recede, he forced himself to straighten and peer down after her into the thin blue glow too reminiscent of his former kingdom. He sighed. 

“You're ready to close this thing down?” Chloe vanished into the tunnels, but her voice floated back up to him, strident and in-charge. “Finding Trixie comes first, so get your pointy tail in gear.” 

Lucifer was beginning to regret his choice of costume after all. His choice of costume, of venue, of lead decorator, of whatever impulse made him offer this night to the child in recompense for his debt. A Hell of your own making, indeed. 

Grimacing, he followed the Detective and the demon. After all, this night really couldn’t get any worse.

 

* * *

 

Trixie peered around the corner. The rough brick wall gave way to yet another wooden door crisscrossed with thick chains and heavy, rusted padlocks. As she slipped past, the door clanked and juddered and something behind it whined, high-pitched, inhuman. She paused, considered a moment, then gave the door a sympathetic pat and moved on.

In the hours she’d spent exploring the tunnels, she had quickly learned that the closed doors hid tableaux that would be strange, hard to understand, peopled with actors that mumbled or screamed. Some lunged at her, begging and sobbing—until they realized she was a kid. Then they blinked, coughed or stammered, and looked so discomfited that she left just to make them feel better. (One crazy-looking woman with an artfully missing eye actually winked at her with the gory false-socket and then wanted to chat about her own kids.)

Knowing they were all actors, like the Char Man and the corn maze creatures upstairs, robbed the banging doors and grotesque scenes of any real fright. After all, Trixie told herself, her family had been in the movie business for generations. She knew truth from special effects.

The grown-ups didn’t seem to spend much time in the rooms either, Trixie noticed, watching gaggles of teachers and even the school Principal poke their heads past the doors, shudder, then hurry past. They seemed much more interested in the cavernous, well-lit space with the enormous silver punch bowl and little, nibbly snacks on sticks and spoons. (The Char Man was there, too, chatting with people. He had waved at her when she waved at him, but she thought he seemed rather bored.) When adults came close to her in the tunnels, Trixie ducked into connecting halls or squished herself into nooks in the uneven walls until they passed. The school nurse stumbled over her once before she could hide, but only hurried past with barely a muffled acknowledgement. Adults seemed a lot more rule-conscious at school than in the eerie blue-lit tunnels.

So far, Trixie had found it most interesting to skulk around the unoccupied connecting rooms, low doorways, and dead-ends. She ducked under loose boards and fake police caution tape, peeking into the all the places that weren’t theatrically-lit or filled with props and actors. In spite of the active club above her head, once you left the main halls, the stone and brick underworld felt abandoned, dry and cold like Abuelita Espinoza’s root cellar, but much larger, more twisting, with halls that doubled-back confusingly or stopped in an abrupt pile of concrete rubble. 

Trixie thought it made a better maze than the elaborate corn field upstairs. And the dark, vacant silence felt much more haunted. This was a place where monsters might  _ really  _ lurk.

At first, she had tried to keep the sullen blue lights of the main tunnels in view as she explored, but she soon found she could wander much further into the subterranean network by the light of her cell phone. She adventured through cobweb-strewn rooms stacked with barrels of aging wines, casks of liquor, and crates filled with bundles of things that spilled onto the floor through the small, toothful ravages left by mice. Meandering in the darkness, Trixie became an intrepid explorer in the bowels of the Underworld itself, following only her curiosity and the narrow white beam of her (magic) phone as it glimmered off of dusty, mismatched bottles in room after room. She poked into boxes filled with straw and packing peanuts and navigated around discarded wooden tables and chairs. In one musty chamber, she found  stacks of garish paintings, each a representation of a devil—red and horned and usually pinned beneath an angel with a sword. She wondered why Lucifer would buy them only to leave them to gather dust down here. She dug through piles of ancient books, turned their thin, unreadable pages until some of them crackled and disintegrated in her hands. She stared up at massive carved stones bigger than she was tall, shivering deliciously at the huge, shifting shadows they cast in her cell phone’s light.

Lucifer had the coolest stuff, she decided. Maybe he’d let her play down here again.

When she squinted at the time on her phone, she was surprised at how late it had grown—far past her bedtime, even on Halloween night. Reluctantly, she turned back toward where she thought the main hallways were behind her. Maybe she should have left some kind of trail with packing peanuts, she thought, considering the branching tunnels and rooms that led to more and more rooms.

The sound of breaking glass shattered the air, shockingly loud after so much quiet.

Trixie froze.

Three heartbeats later, there came another crash, like a vase fallen from a high shelf to a hard floor. Then another, this time followed by an ugly, snorting laugh. A burst of hushed voices erupted from an open door several yards beyond.

She flicked her phone’s light off and held her breath, listening hard. No one was supposed to be down here. Not this far beyond the bounds of the Halloween activities. But if she had found the entrance open and unwatched, perhaps others had, too? Or maybe she had strayed from beneath Lux, wandered into tunnels under the L.A. streets or belonging to another building? Was that possible? What if there were monsters here, after all? Monsters that thought little girls might be a tasty treat? Maybe there were real reasons why children weren’t allowed down here, not just overprotective mommies.

A more raucous bark of laughter echoed against the low ceiling, too high-pitched to be an adult, followed by a distinct chorus of very human shushing. A few words solidified in the dark — “stupid” and “pay back” and a different, worried-sounding voice answering weakly.

Even though she couldn’t make out most of the words, Trixie thought she recognized the peevish, angry voice. He was older than her, an eighth-grader, and everyone in the school knew and feared him. Most of the school bullies left her alone after the Snapchat incident, but she had still avoided tangling with this boy whenever they shared the playground. She definitely didn’t want to run into him and his cronies here in the dark, deep beneath Los Angeles, far away from where she was supposed to be. Far away from where  _ he  _ was supposed to be, which boded even worse.

Pocketing her phone, Trixie turned back the way she thought she’d come, sliding one hand along the uneven wall to guide her steps in the dark. Behind her, more glass broke. It tinkled for several seconds as if the shards rained down from a height. More nasty laughter.

And someone whimpered—a thin, doglike, helpless sound. More unnerving than all the horrors behind chained doors, that one abortive noise raised the hairs at the back of her neck and stopped her cold. Trixie bit her lip, blinking in the oppressive darkness.

Deckers never walk away from bullies. 

Steeling herself, she turned and crept toward the voices again, setting her sneakers carefully, feeling her way. Two soft steps, a pause to listen, then moving again on tiptoes, ears straining for further indications of where the gang was ahead of her. As she groped her way closer, she wrinkled her nose at an increasingly sharp odor that tainted the corridor air—an earthy stench that reminded her of Maze’s breath when she came home just after breakfast from a successful hunt. Of the smell from the squat, dark bottles Lucifer sometimes brought to the apartment to share with her mom after they finished an especially challenging case. Alcohol. Lots of it. 

Ahead, an opening in the tunnel wall flickered with lights, the cold LED glare of two or three cell phones moving erratically over the walls and floor. Shadows flickered across the doorway, spilled onto the floor, then vanished into shadow again. The bitter reek of alcohol intensified into an almost tangible wall as she slid forward as stealthily as she could.

“ —too good for snitches,” sneered that too-familiar boy’s voice, cracking the way they did in middle school. “Right?” 

“No!” Softer but higher-pitched, quavering, breathless. “Please! I didn’t—”

Closer now, Trixie could hear the patter of liquid against the concrete floor, then a rasping noise and a soft whuff that seemed to force itself through the air around her. Someone gave a terrified squeak, tiny and stifled, almost lost in a sudden sound of scuffling, the crunch of broken glass, the drag and scrape of feet.

“Don’t—!” The panicked voice cut off in wet, sputtering gasps. A chorus of nervous giggles and murmurs rose in its place.

“So, you  _ didn’t _ tell that fireman this morning that it was my idea, is that it? Your mouth just ran off without you?” Another wild thrash of movement around the doorframe ahead. “What? You thought I wouldn’t find out you squealed like a wittle baby?” 

Trixie crouched beside the door, listening to the inarticulate, half-smothered protests in the near-dark.

“I said, drink it or drown in it! You don’t get to tell on me, you little shit. Specially not to the cops.”

Cautiously, Trixie peered around the doorframe. In the unsteady light of the cellphones, she could make out several kids grouped in a loose pack around two boys—a small one cowering miserably against some barrels and the menacing shape of the school’s most infamous bully. Kevin Crabtree had pinned the other child down with one heavy forearm and was shoving a broken bottle wildly into his face. Liquor soaked the boy’s hair and clothes, and he coughed and sputtered, clenching his eyes against the stinging liquid and the terrifying teeth of glass. 

Trixie growled under her breath, showing teeth the same way Maze did when she was both angry and disgusted. The corn maze fire this morning, the one that had damaged so much of the public Park and ruined everyone’s Halloween plans, wasn’t an accident, after all. These awful boys— _ this _ awful boy—had deliberately started it! And here he was, beating up on one of his own who must have had a change of heart. 

She watched the unhappy child on the floor, brain racing furiously. What could she do against so many bigger kids? She could sneak away, find her Mom and bring her down to arrest them. But how would she explain her own presence in the tunnels? Could she convince her to come at all, knowing that she’d have to argue through her mother’s disappointment and annoyance that Trixie had broken the rules? 

Perhaps she could text someone else? Maybe Maze was still cheerfully fake-torturing people somewhere close?  But if so, Trixie didn’t think she’d be listening for her phone. She had seen Maze nearly bite the head off an actor for real when his phone started playing “Staying Alive” in the middle of his beheading. 

If she could find the big room with the Char Man and the punch bowl, there would be other grown-ups. But she wasn’t sure she could find it again without a lot of searching.

Trixie gnawed her lip, irresolute.

The gang of kids milled around a little, murmuring, shifting with nervous energy as the smaller boy half-strangled on force-fed booze. The cell phone beams wavered, spotlighting individuals or roving along the ceiling and floor, but always traveling back to the tableaux of Kevin Crabtree and his latest victim. As far as Trixie could see, most of the others were boys near Kevin’s age; two looked considerably older—taller, certainly, and she didn’t remember ever seeing them in the school cafeteria or the hallways. These teenagers looked bored, more interested in the small, neat casks and old bottles swathed in straw than in Kevin. A thin girl who might even be old enough to drive stood at the back of the group, nose buried in her phone, oblivious.

“This stuff down here must be worth a fortune,” one of the older boys said, hefting a gallon-sized cask to peer more closely at it in the poor light. “Look at the date on that one.” He tossed it heavily to the other teen for inspection. 

“Kevin, dude, give it up.” The other older boy rubbed dust from the cask’s stamped label and whistled. “This is the jackpot right here.” 

“My Dad says if it’s older, it's better,” a spiky-haired seventh grader offered eagerly. 

“Your Dad’s a drunk, so I guess he’d know,” Kevin snarked over his shoulder, irritated the group’s attention seemed to be wandering. “It all tastes like ass to me so far, no matter what you all say.” He gave his victim a hard shove against a barrel. “But you like this shit, right? Here. Have some more.”

Trixie thought the child was crying, but it was hard to tell between the sheen of dripping whisky and his panicked flailing. She groped in her pockets for anything of use. A crayon stub. Her phone. A piece of cinnamon candy covered in lint. Nothing she could use to intervene. (Maze had told her to always have a weapon, at least until she finished her training, but her mom was pretty upset the day she carried one of the butter knives to school in her backpack. Mommy and Maze had shouted a lot at each other when they thought she was asleep that night, and Trixie had decided not to take butter knives out of the house.) 

She stared at her phone. Maybe she could just call 9-1-1? Would her mom’s work friends think a school bully worth their time? 

Probably not. 

Should she call anyway?

“I’m not done with you, right?” Kevin spat with a final shove. As if seeking another target for his ire, he seized a dark bottle off a shelf and scowled at it. “Shit. Who could even read this? It’s dumb not to write in English.” With a whoop, he flung the bottle across the room, shattering it against the wall beside the door. 

Trixie flinched back to avoid the spray of flying glass and alcohol. Maybe she could backtrack just to the closest door with actors behind it, convince them to come take a look? Which door was that? Could she find her way back, after all? It had seemed easy just minutes ago, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“Stop breaking them all,” grumbled the second of the older boys, a skinny guy with floppy surfer hair who was wrestling with the seal on one tiny cask. “I want to drink ‘em. Or sell ‘em. Or trade ‘em for some oxy this weekend, right?” He laughed as the bung finally popped free and the liquid within sloshed out over his hands. “Oh, yeah! Here we go!”

In answer, Kevin pitched yet another bottle hard onto the floor, smashing it into a mess of liquor and glass. Giving the older guys a haughty stare, he straddled the puddle, pulled a packet of matches from his pocket, and lit one with a practiced flourish. When he dropped it between his feet, the fumes caught fire with a tangible whump of air. Blue-white flame raced over the ground beneath him as Kevin twisted himself aside with a little unbalanced stagger and a triumphant whoop.

He stood nearby and watched the fire hungrily for several seconds, then nudged the boy on the floor hard with one toe. “I’d bet you’d burn good, too,” he said darkly.  “Wanna find out?” He grabbed the front of the kid’s hoodie in one huge fist and hauled the boy roughly toward the flames, snorting with laughter as his victim tried to scramble free of the alcohol-soaked garment. 

Trixie wasn’t sure he’d actually burn the kid, but she couldn’t wait any longer. 

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she rose from her hiding place and strolled into the room as if she owned it. “I’ve really got to hand it to you, Kevin Crabtree,” she began, hooking her thumbs in her pockets and staring around at the room full of startled, shadowed faces. She tried to channel her best imitation of Mazikeen’s cool arrogance. “Everyone already knows that you're dumb, but to steal from the Devil Himself?  That's so stupid it's almost brave. Oh, yeah, keep rolling your eyes. Maybe you'll find a brain back there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone. Comments are always love -- and the encouragement definitely helps. :) Happy Halloween, again!


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